


Mother Words

by theleaveswant



Category: The Losers, True Blood
Genre: Abortion, Gen, Islam, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2010-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aisha and Pooch, while stopped for brunch in Bon Temps, Louisiana, witness a political discussion between two of their restaurant's staff, then try to help the waitress when she begins (for reasons unrelated) to hemorrhage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother Words

“And I was like, 'dude, you _have_ no Quran.”

The brother in the apron and the eyeshadow sitting at the bar snickers before the kid on the television reaches his now-catchphrase. He's probably seen the clip a half-dozen times; everyone has. Pooch chuckles too, taking a momentary pause from inhaling the mountain of greasy eggs in front of him. Aisha frowns at her own plate and reaches for the hot sauce. There's no one else in the restaurant.

The red-headed waitress emerges from the back wearing a look of distaste. She pours herself a glass of iced tea and takes a generous swig, then addresses her glamorous colleague. “I wish they'd stop showing that before it gives people ideas.”

“What ideas? 'Stand up to injustice, get your ass on TV'?”

“I just think they should be careful what they say about those Muslims. You know they're almost as bad as vampires.”

Aisha freezes, fork poised to stab into the mess on her plate. Pooch sees her tension and shows her a sympathetic wince.

“I don't know how I keep forgetting what a bigot y'all are.” The cook grimaces but keeps watching the screen. Aisha notes that he hasn't looked any of them in the face since she and Pooch walked in. “I s'pose you think the burning was a good idea.”

“Of course not!” The waitress looks aghast. “My god, I think it's terrible. Like teasing a mad dog.”

Pooch frowns. Aisha's knuckles stand out white from her death-grip on the cutlery.

“Excuse me?” says the cook.

The waitress walks to a table opposite Aisha and starts straightening the already grid-perfect place settings. She looks pale. “I just mean they're dangerous. It ain't smart to go provokin' them.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” The cook glances over, then looks quickly away. “Every single believer in the Islamic faith is a dangerous terrorist, is that what you think?”

“Well obviously not every one, but how can you ever trust 'em, knowing they might be?”

“The same way I go through my day without expecting every damn motherfucker to try an' smack my ass up for bein' gay, or black, or both. That's what trust is. You do it because there's no other way to live.”

Pooch nods approval for this speech and lays a hand over Aisha's where she has pressed her palms flat against the laminate, seething. She's glad that she doesn't have to explain to Pooch why this talk gets under her skin the way she would to Clay or Jensen. She's not sure she even could explain. It's not as if she's ever subscribed to Islam any more than to any other theist doctrine, and in any case she's given plenty of people better reasons to call her a terrorist than her complexion or her place of birth.

“Lafayette, please.” The waitress closes her eyes and puts a hand to her belly. “I'm really not feeling too good, can you just forget I said anything?”

“Oh, I'm sorry I upset your delicate sensibilities, Miss racist, conservative—”

The cook turns around and his eyes bug out wide an instant before the waitress sways and catches herself on the table in front of her, rattling its contents out of alignment. Her lips twitch like she's whispering something. Three syllables; it looks to Aisha like 'that was fast.'

The cook, Lafayette, just stares, petrified, while Pooch gets to his feet and takes a step towards the waitress. “Ma'am, are you alright?”

She waves him away. “I'm fine, I just . . . gonna have a little sit-down.”

She makes it a few wobbling steps towards the pass-through before dropping onto one knee, doubled over in evident pain. Aisha's nostrils flare when she sees the trickle of blood on the American woman's pasty thigh. The waitress notices it too and smears it with her fingertips. “I should go clean that up,” she murmurs, and despite Pooch's head start it's Aisha who catches the waitress when she faints and lowers her gently to the ground.

Aisha brushes the waitress's hair out of her face while Pooch crouches over her. “Ma'am, can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?”

“Arlene.”

“Arlene, I'm Pooch, and this is my friend Aisha. We're going to try our best to help you. Do you have any idea what the matter is?”

Arlene shakes her head but answers, “miscarriage,” then adds, so quietly that even Aisha can barely hear her, “I hope.”

Pooch looks to Aisha for confirmation: this is not normal. “You need to call a doctor,” he tells Lafayette, who has finally snapped out of his trance and is already fumbling for his phone.

“I'm'a call my boyfriend first,” he says without looking up. “He's a nurse, and a lot closer than any hospital. He'll know what to do.”

Arlene has blacked out again, so Aisha leans in and digs her fingers hard into her armpit to revive her. It works, and Arlene moans and clutches at Aisha. “I feel sick.”

She gags and swallows. Her breath is minty. Aisha scowls and shakes her, casting her memory for the abortifacient's English name. “Did you take something?”

“What?”

Aisha keeps her voice low, and growls through gritted teeth. “Pennyroyal? How much? Was it a tea or an oil?”

Arlene looks terrified. “I don't know what you're—I would never, I'm a Christian wom—”

“Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“Oh God, I'd never, I swear . . .” her voice drops to a whisper and she beckons Aisha close. “I took the oil. I know she said not to, but the tea didn't work and the bottle was so tiny and there wasn't much left anyway, like not even a teaspoon? And I didn't want to, I know it's a sin, but it's, I can't—” she cuts off and claws at her abdomen, “it's _evil_.”

“Okay,” Aisha says, stroking Arlene's arm gently, “okay. Everything will be alright. You just stay awake with me here.”

Aisha looks up at Pooch, who's still hovering over them looking worried, and at Lafayette, who's biting his thumbnail and stealing peeks from the corner of his eye. “Can you get me a bucket, please?”

“What's happening to her?”

“She's been poisoned.”

“Shit,” Pooch says and bites his lip. “How? Should we try to make her throw it up?”

“I think it's probably too late for that, but I want the bucket in case she throws up on her own.”

“Here.” Lafayette hands an empty pitcher to Pooch, who passes it on to Aisha. “I'll go get something bigger.” He heads for the back and Pooch follows him smoothly, asking something about clean towels.

Aisha could have passed the comforting gig off on Pooch, who was better at it, and gone hunting for supplies herself, but that would mean betraying this woman's ironic gift of trust. “You're not evil,” she tells Arlene. “Now's not the right time for you to be pregnant, I get that. You're not alone. Women have been making this decision for thousands of years. You chose a dangerous way to go about it, but I don't believe you're doing anything wrong.”

“No, you don't understand. I mean the _baby's_ evil, just like his daddy was. That's why I've got to get rid of it before it gets born and starts killing people.”

Aisha's not sure what to say to that, but whatever's going on in Arlene's head it's too late to take back what's happening to her body, so she just smooths her floral-scented hair and helps her retch into the scratched plastic pitcher. “It's okay. Your baby won't kill anybody now.”

“Please don't tell Terry.”

“I won't.”

Pooch arrives then with a freshly-rinsed rubber pail and sets it next to the women on the floor. Aisha asks him if he's figured out what's wrong with Lafayette, and he says he'll tell her later. “The nurse is on his way, though. Should get here any minute. How's she doing?”

Arlene sobs and spits into the pitcher. Her eyes are closed and her skin is grey. Aisha looks at Pooch, expression as bald as his shorn-smooth head. “She's ingested an extremely concentrated plant poison trying to abort an evil foetus. She's probably suffering multiple organ failure and I don't know how long it will take before there's permanent damage.”

“So not great, then?”

“Not great.”

“You did say 'evil foetus', right?”

“I promised I wouldn't say anything to Terry, do you know who that is?”

“Terry works in the kitchen,” says Lafayette, appearing gracefully at Pooch's elbow. “He's ex-army, like you.”

Pooch blinks—he knows that, of all the Losers, he's the one least often read as military—so Aisha knows he didn't tell Lafayette while they were out of the room. She'll worry about that later. “He her baby's daddy?”

“Shit, no. Terry's all shook up but he's an alright guy. What she's got growing in her is the seed of a serial killer that picked off some half a dozen women and a cat before anybody in this fucked-up town got wise.”

Aisha wants Lafayette to keep talking, but Arlene interrupts her question with a dry heave and a pitiful whimper. “Mama . . .”

Aisha holds Arlene's head over the bucket and rubs circles on her back. She doesn't know what to say; she has so little experience with this sort of care-giving role. At a loss for consoling words, she opens her mouth to whatever sounds will come, and surprises herself with a lullaby, one her mother used to sing. At one point she forgets the words and hums, pausing to say softly, as much to herself as to Arlene, “nobody's born evil. You learn it. Some learn it early, some soak it up easy, but nobody's ever just a bad man. Life's not that simple.” She starts again at the beginning of the verse, and doesn't need to pause again.

Aisha holds her there until a bearded man with hospital ID comes to take her away, rocking Arlene in her arms like a child while cramps wring her womb like a bar towel, murmuring mother's words in her mother's tongue.

Arlene squirms fitfully when Aisha stops singing to help Pooch and Lafayette fill the nurse, Jesus, in on the situation. She stirs again as they move her to Jesus' car, blinking her glassy eyes until they almost focus on Aisha. She mumbles something, her voice a weak high kitten's mewl, “—pretty.”

“What's that?” Jesus asks, but Arlene reaches for Aisha's hand.

“Singing. What were you singing?”

“Nothing. Just nursery rhymes.”

“But what was it?”

“Arabic,” Aisha says, squeezing Arlene's bloody fingers before she lets her go.

“Oh,” Arlene smiles dopily, then sinks down onto the car seat.

Aisha accepts Pooch's hand on her shoulder and they watch the car kick up gravel until it disappears around the bend. Her lips move soundlessly, “Allah ma'aki.”

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some harsh language, including Islamophobic remarks, and moderately graphic description of a not-entirely-accidental poisoning resulting in miscarriage. Also contains spoilers for all of True Blood up to 3x12 "Evil Is Going Down."
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, first of all, I have not witnessed a pennyroyal overdose first-hand and I didn't find much useful information on Google so I have no idea if what happens to Arlene is accurate in detail. I wholeheartedly support every person's right to reproductive justice including access to safe abortions, and I also support the right to choose herbal abortifacients over commercially produced drugs or surgery--but if you're going to use pennyroyal, take it in a tea (heavily diluted) because the concentrations of toxic compounds in the essential oil will KILL YOU DEAD.
> 
> Second, regarding Aisha's history and movie vs. comics canon: I specified movie!Aisha in my Intoabar sign-up but have drawn heavily on elements of comics canon/characterization to fill the prompt, HOWEVER comics!Aisha is Pashtun from Afghanistan and Aisha in this story is not. I've basically taken the bet that Arlene might not know what Pashto is or connect it automatically with Islam the way she probably would Arabic, and taken as true movie!Aisha's comment that she grew up in "the wilds of Northern Africa" (i.e. not Afghanistan, and a territory where Arabic is a more likely first language).
> 
> Oh, and the TV clip at the beginning of the story is [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-KgBhslBQ), about a thwarted book-burning in September 2010.


End file.
